


you’re turning the hot tap but the water is cold

by meliore



Series: 30 Day NSFW Challenge - 2019 [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 30 Day NSFW Challenge, Angst, Established Relationship, Hurt Tony, Hurt Tony Stark, Hydra Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, naked kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 22:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20713472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meliore/pseuds/meliore
Summary: The Asset - who is not Anthony Stark, even if The Avengers say that he is - thinks that HYDRA and SHIELD are the same. The Soldier disagrees.





	you’re turning the hot tap but the water is cold

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while ago - if I remember it correctly, it was between May and August, but because of my issues with self-criticism, I am posting it only now that I have rewritten it.
> 
> I chose to use the 'Teen and Up' rating because I feel like this is NSFW, but not enough NSFW to be mature, you know.
> 
> The only warning that I can think of is implied/referenced torture, which is one of the tags. If you do see something else that needs a warning, feel free to tell me.
> 
> The title is a quote from Bath is Black, a song by Marika Hackman.
> 
> Second prompt: Naked Kissing.

A door. Steel. No way out through any other place.

He can not do the steel any damage. He has tried to. It is still in place, firm, not even scratched by his hand.

They decide to leave him alone. They consider him a threat. They are right; the Asset's main purpose is to be a tool, but he could be considered a threat.

The Soldier disagreed with them. As the Widow led him to the bathroom, the Asset could hear his voice.

"Steve," he said. His voice was familiar, but something about it was wrong. "He's _different_, Steve."

When he glanced at him, he saw the way that he moved his fingers. The ones made of cables and metal; the ones that the Asset had repaired, many times, after a mission.

Including the mission that he had failed, the Captain. _Steve_.

The movement went unnoticed by the other people in the room. They weren't paying attention.

He had been taught to do the opposite.

_Pay attention to every detail._ _Look at every place that you can and can not think of._

He didn't knew why, but the Soldier seemed to be feeling anxious because of - or for - him.

He could be worried, like SHIELD is worried with the possibility of him killing one of their Assets if he is given the chance to do so. Because of that, no one but the Black Widow had been allowed to be alone with him.

And now she has left him alone because she - and the rest of her team - believes that the Asset would like that better.

The Soldier seemed to be worried with the chance that the Asset would misbehave while he was left alone, instead. It felt like it was a more real possibility, based on what the Asset deduced from his behavior and the little that he had said in his presence.

But that didn't matter.

_Focus_.

The door was made of steel, locked for the amount of time that they believed he would need to wash himself, he had been left alone and they considered him a threat.

The fact that they spoke in a soothing tone, promising safety and independence, was weird. They clearly think of him as a prisoner, but they want to act as if they think that he is his own person.

SHIELD, well, what was left of SHIELD, was very similar to HYDRA.

Both have rules, some of them written down somewhere and some of them being something that you are supposed to know. Both punish him for his mistakes until he doesn’t commits them anymore - HYDRA does that by putting his head underwater, SHIELD does that by confining him - and both lie. At times, though, both tell the truth.

A door. Steel. No way out through any other place. The Asset should be focused on an escape plan, and not on misbehaving. What is his use, if he dares to think that HYDRA is anything like SHIELD?

The Soldier said that he was safe. The Soldier said that they could touch each other. That the Captain, the Widow, the Archer, the Scientist, the God - they are the good guys, the Soldier said. And the Asset was very tempted to misbehave and to trust him; being able to touch and to be touched by the Soldier makes him feel warm, since the Soldier touched him in rare occasions, most of them because the Asset had been injured in one of their shared missions.

But, in the end, he couldn’t believe him. HYDRA has taught him that they are good, but evil is a natural sin of mankind. He once heard a handler say that evil and chaos could not be avoided, but they could be controlled.

And if he dares to think that HYDRA is not good, that is not a proof of SHIELD’s goodness. Both could injure, torture and kill in the name of the greater good.

A door. Steel. No way out through any other place. He needed to think of this as a mission that he is yet to fulfill. But being here has been messing with his head. He has been having desires of disobeying HYDRA. He has been having _desires_. The chair, when they get him back, or when he manages to escape on his own, will be surely waiting for him. Indiscipline is almost worse than disrespect.

“Mr. Stark?” the voice of the Captain makes him seem worried. It echoes in the Asset’s head.

_Steven Grant Rogers, Captain America, Howard Stark’s greatest creation_.

It makes his head ache. The Asset presses the right side of his head against the cold tile wall of the bathroom and closes his eyes. The water is the same that it is in HYDRA. It makes him think of home.

_What is home supposed to be?_

The small cell where he and the Soldier used to be put in, when they had no missions but weren't in cryo.

It was very cold.

The Asset’s body, although better than an average human’s body, felt as if it were freezing.

The Soldier broke the rules, a few times, and held him close.

_Steve Rogers, Star-Spangled Man With a Plan, Howard Stark’s greatest creation_.

That man should be dead. He was dead, before 2012. But he was alive now, and he was messing with the Soldier’s head like he is messing with the Asset’s.

“Mr. Stark,” he repeated. “I just wanted to tell you that you can come out of the bathroom when you finish.”

The Asset’s clothes, including his mask and his goggle, are on top of a bench that is a few steps away from where he is. This bathroom was meant for a group of people to use. But he is alone.

A door. Steel. No way out through any other place.

The Asset brought his knees close to his chest. He held them tightly.

He has no interest in getting out in the way that the Captain is suggesting him to. They will only take him to a different cell. One that can be described as comfortable, but a golden cage is still a cage.

The Captain has - likely - left.

The Asset refuses to move.

A door. Steel.

SHIELD has been offering him food and what the Captain has referred to as a ‘nicer room’. The Asset is not interested.

He can stay alive for a longer period of time than an average human being can without eating, and there is no such thing as a nicer room, just a better disguised cell.

Would he be praised if he were loyal and came back? Or would he be punished for the fact that he is showing vulnerability?

SHIELD is brainwashing him.

The handler, rightfully, will not want to know _why _a mistake happened. If anything, they will want to know _why _the Asset allowed it to happen.

But he didn’t wanted to let it happen.

A door. Steel.

The door was opened. He couldn’t hear any steps.

“Asset,” the Soldier murmured, softly, as he approached the Asset.

The Asset was not sure if that should make him feel happy or if he should feel more nervous because of it.

The Soldier has been important to him - as more than an Asset - for a long time. His very first memories are of the Soldier. The Asset has broken protocol and rules for him; he has ever been sent to the chair in his place a few times. And the Soldier has done the same for him.

They used every opportunity they had to touch each other.

_A door_, he tries to remind himself, _it is open. Disarm the Soldier, run. Disarm the Soldier, convince him/knock him out, run. Bring him. Mission complete, despite the delay. Punishment likely will not be the chair._

A-- a **line**, short, lightly traced over a hand. A hip. Once, when they were alone in a mission, somewhere distant from any handler that could see them, they held hands while the light of the moon illuminated the room that they were in.

Sometimes, they smiled to each other. A small smile, barely noticeable. But more than enough.

But the Soldier has been modified by SHIELD.

The Asset’s opinion - _it _should not have an opinion, but it has - of the Soldier has not changed. Even today, he would still break any protocol and rule for him. But he cannot let HYDRA go.

SHIELD is going to hurt him as much as HYDRA did.

A door.

The Asset should not care if he were hurt. The Soldier being injured was different - he was far more important to HYDRA than the Asset was, and he was more important to the Asset than HYDRA was, although thinking of that made him flinch with fear.

Any injury done to the Asset would be considered collateral damage. It has always been this way. But he has been spending time here, in this prison, and they brainwash him day by day. They are brainwashing the Soldier too.

Why hasn't the Soldier noticed that?

“Asset,” the Soldier’s voice makes a warm feeling spread all over the Asset’s body. Mostly, he can only hear his voice when a handler is talking to him and expecting an answer, and that is rare. They usually do not talk to each other. “Look at me.”

The Asset tries to not do that, but he has been programmed to follow the Soldier’s orders. While HYDRA does not consider him an Assistant for the Soldier, they have programmed him to obey each and every superior’s orders - and that can go from someone like the Soldier to a simple guard like Rumlow.

_A door_. He is breathing too fast. He does what the Soldier has asked him to do.

The Soldier is smiling, but his eyes shine in a different way than they usually do when he smiles to him. He sits by the Asset’s side on the wet floor.

“The floor is wet,” the Asset warns, a second too late.

“I know,” the Soldier replies.

The Soldier, he can remember, dislikes feeling cold.

_Door. Steel. Focus._

“The water is cold,” he warns.

“I know,” the Soldier replies.

The silence is something that they have grown used to. They had to deal with it for far too long to not be used to it.

It does not bother the Asset. He could stare at the Soldier, silent, for a long time. His long hair is clinging to his skin, and the weird clothes that he are wearing are being distorted by the water, as if they were being glued to his body.

It makes the Asset think of when they put his head under water.

But while the silence is not of importance to the Asset, it seemingly bothers the Soldier.

“<SHIELD is different>,” the Soldier is direct, like he is when the Asset does not understand something in a mission. “<In here, it is different. It is not like HYDRA>.”

“<They can be lying>,” the Asset replies.

Russian is more comfortable than English. It is the sound of home.

_Steel, the door, no way out_.

“<They are not>,” the Soldier assures.

He is tempted to believe.

“<You can not know>,” he tries.

But unless the Soldier is injured by something, the Asset is not used to defending someone - or something - with his words. The Asset is not used to defend his… his point, in a fight.

“<I can>,” the Soldier’s hand, the Asset focuses on it as soon as it moves, comes closer to the Asset’s.

“<You will be punished>,” the Asset, bringing his hand to his chest and holding it with his other hand, says.

“<I will not>,” the Soldier’s voice is so very soft. He is not smiling anymore. He approaches the Asset, who retracts himself, coming even closer to the cold wall. “<Neither will you. I swear>.”

SHIELD is not trustworthy, but the Asset can not doubt it if the Soldier is certain.

“Are you sure?” he asks, switching back to English.

“Yes,” the Soldier answers. “I look for HYDRA in every place. We can not, and we should not, trust in every person from SHIELD. But there are people who we can trust in.”

“Who?”

“Sharon Carter,” the blonde woman that seemed to almost recognize the Asset, with a name that the Asset can almost remember having heard before. “Maria Hill. Nick Fury.”

“Your mission,” the Asset murmured. The Soldier nodded.

“The Avengers’ team. I am sure about those.”

He stared at the Asset, and the Asset stared at him.

He was afraid, still.

“I am safe here, Asset,” the Soldier, approaching his hand with his own again, says. He sounds just like a handler. But so, so much different. This time, the Asset, although hesitant, allows him to hold his hand. “You are safe here too. _We _are safe.”

The Soldier’s hand, cold because of the water, somehow still feels warm.

_The mission. Door, steel. Vulnerability, easy to convince. Easy to escape._

The Asset tries to say that the Soldier can not know that, not fur sure, even if he is believing it so firmly, but the words are stuck on his throat.

Something inside of him is warm.

They are _safe_. He has never been _safe _in his life. Safety is a luxury, and an Asset is a mere tool. An Asset does not deserves any luxuries.

But he is _safe_. They are safe.

(_We are not_, he tries to tell himself.)

“Are we safe enough to kiss?”

There is no smile on the Soldier’s face, no shine of happiness in his eyes. No reaction. He expects him to say no, they are not safe enough to kiss. That would prove the Asset’s point. It would prove that HYDRA and SHIELD are simply two sides of the same coin.

But then the Soldier answered, “Yes, we are.”

The Asset blinked.

“I have never kissed anyone.”

Although the floor is wet, although the Soldier’s clothes cling to his body, although the Asset is naked and sitting in the floor, water falling down on them, and although they are in a similar place to HYDRA, the Soldier comes closer to him.

The Asset closes his eyes, fearing what may happen. But the Soldier’s lips touch his, and the touch is delicate.

No one comes inside yelling at them. There are no noises besides the noise of the water, too.

The Soldier moves away.

The Asset opened his eyes, again, and stared at the Soldier’s face, so close to his own.

“We are safe,” he promised, holding the Asset’s hand. “And I will never let HYDRA hurt us again.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if the 'Naked Kissing' tag can be applied to this story, since there is almost no description of it, and Tony is the only naked person but...
> 
> The '<' and '>' indicating that they were talking in Russian was based on Marvel comics' dialogue in Russian being shown in the same way.


End file.
